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Saturday, March 8, 2008

10,000 BC (*)

10,000 BC

The First Action Zero

Where do I even start ripping on this thing? That in 10,000 BC the cave men had shiny white teeth and stylishly trimmed goatees instead of bushy beards? (Were Gillette and Crest whitening strips invented 10,000 years ago? Apparently.) That everyone spoke the same language, which sounded exactly like English, except the villains, who all had subtitles? How about the ostrich attack? Look out! Giant ostriches! Then there was the big finale in Egypt, where there were no Egyptians. Instead, African slaves and wooly mammonths worked together to build the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids for the main villain, the "god" referred to only as "the Almighty." The Almighty has priests who wandered out of the Kali India set of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Also, the Almighty was an old white guy and went down like a bitch. It's hard to blame the actors for this mess. I actually like the two leads. Steven Strait was Warren Peace in Sky High, a pretty good teen-aimed Disney superhero movie. He plays D'Leh, the hunter who slayed the mighty snuffleupagus. Strait wants to get d'layed by Evolet (Camilla Belle), the only hot, blue eyed girl in pre-history. Camilla Belle gives me a wooly mammoth so I get why Strait chased her across half of Africa, or where ever they were, when she got kidnapped and brought to Egypt. I'd love to see Belle in a good movie one day but who knows when that day will come? The story of 10,000 BC has been told 10,000 times before in 10,000 other shitty movies, and a few good ones. The action involves redundant chases where strategically dirty-looking cave men are attacked by wooly mammonths, giant ostriches and sabre toothed tigers. All the action sequences were already done better in three Jurassic Parks. There are big laughs because the dialogue, characterizations, and well, everything else, are retarded. There's a whole deal where Strait managed to assemble an army of spear-chucking African stereotypes. They watch helplessly as Belle and their friends float down a river on boats. Then they walk through the desert after them and get lost. Hey stupids, why didn't you all just walk along side the river? Later, Strait frees all the slaves in Egypt and they storm the pyramids. There's a giant boat docked in there somehow. So they set fire to the boat. Hey stupids, you could have all gotten on the giant boat and sailed to your homes. Now you all have to walk through the desert. The ending is the biggest laugh riot: Belle is shot with an arrow in the back and dies. Aw, after all that, Belle died?! Strait never even got to do her prehistoric-like. But no, Belle then comes back to life when the old shaman woman from Strait's village the movie kept cutting away to drops dead and magically gives Belle her last breath. Belle opens her eyes and she's fine. Hey stupids, isn't there still an arrow stuck in her back? I didn't see anyone pull it out, is all. The audience at the 10:45am $5 matinee of 10,000 BC hated the movie. (I was the only person in the theatre. It's cold and rainy in Boston and everyone else had the good sense to stay home.)